Oct 132010
 
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Andrew Romano in Newsweek in May 2010 reported on the past five Republican presidents, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush and if they could satisfy today’s Republican base.

  • Richard Nixon
    • In 1969, he introduced the only balanced budget between 1961 and 1998.
    • “He indexed Social Security for inflation, which, along with increased Medicare spending, helped boost government benefits from 6.3 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP) to 8.9 percent over the course of his administration.”
    • “The top tax rate went up during Nixon’s first three years in office.”
    • He signed the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act amendments of 1972
    • He established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Council on Environmental Quality
    • He introduced a comprehensive health-insurance-reform bill that included an individual mandate and called for a government-run “public option”.
    • He “he slashed defense spending from 9.1 percent to 5.8 percent of GNP”.
  • Gerald Ford
    • Cut “off all aid to Jerusalem for six months between March and September of 1975”.
    • When discussing abortion, he “called himself ‘pro-choice’ in a 1998 interview with Larry King)” and when discussing gay rights he said ‘I think they ought to be treated equally. Period'” in 2001.
  • Ronald Reagan
    • Federal “employment grew by more than 60,000”.
    • “The national debt soared from $700 billion to $3 trillion”.
    • “After 1981, Reagan raised taxes nearly every year: 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1986.”
    • “In 1986, Reagan passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which eventually granted amnesty to 2.7 million illegal immigrants.”
    • “In 1967, he signed a law in California that legalized millions of abortions.”
  • George H.W. Bush
    • “Bush’s final budget increased the marginal tax rate, phased out exemptions for high-income taxpayers”.
    • “Bush also wound up bailing out the savings-and-loan industry with $126 billion in taxpayer money”
    • “He reauthorized the Clean Air Act and even signed the Immigration Act of 1990, a law that increased legal immigration to the U.S. by 40 percent”.
  • George W. Bush
    • By “the end of Bush’s term, the national debt stood at $11.3 trillion-more than double what it was when he took office.”
    • Authorized “an unfunded $7 trillion Medicare drug-benefit program through Congress”.

To read the entire article, click on Even Reagan Wasn’t a Reagan Republican.

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